DB: Festivals

Last weekend I was hornswaggled into attending Folk Life in beautiful Seattle Washington. It’s been a few years since I played with a foot-bag or danced to a drum circle, but aside from the fact that gutter-punk is the new 90’s hippy, somehow the festival is not what it used to be. For one thing, at an estimated 250,000, there was probably triple the number of people than when I went five or so years ago. This means that even on a grounds as large as the Seattle Center, simply navigating a path through the fray was strikingly similar to an I-5 southbound commute on any given Friday afternoon. I sometimes felt as if I was attempting to walk through the set of a 70’s inspired Zombie movie, and though we milled about for miles, there was little room for dancing or setting my Ouija on a batch of grass for a seance.

It shocked me how different this festival was from say Showcase Tacoma or Urban Arts Fest … and yet how similar it was to the Taste of Tacoma, Tall Ships or the 4th of July on Ruston Way. Crowds kind of bug me … I begin to feel like a piece of cattle, self herded by my stomach or some strange desire for a treasure I don’t think I will otherwise get my hands on. There’s just no way I would ever pay $7 for a hot dog, so I end up a little sun-fried and struck mad by a case of low blood sugar. However at Urban Arts Fest (which wont be happening this year) I had the foresight to bring my own food, crowds were hardly an issue and I probably had the better time of my summer goofing off on the lawn below Suite133’s big north facing windows.

Showcase last summer was semi-successful in bolstering attendance (despite the weather) by booking Portland’s own, Helio Sequence and calling themselves “Tacomas Hip and Indie Festival” (snicker). But in comparison to the Capitol Hill Block Party swinging both Sonic Youth and The Jesus Lizard this year, I doubt there is little combination that Met-parks and TSODA can come up with that will hold a candle. (Prove me wrong, please.)

I’m just wondering if the Festival model is the right fit for congregating Tacoma’s art community in any sort of un-polarized fashion. To me it seems that anything “grass roots” that comes from Tacoma is going to need a slightly more populated soil before it can achieve the megalomaniacal stratus of something like Folklife. On the other hand; Art on the Ave does a pretty good job, being surrounded by a walkable neighborhood has its benefits. I think Showcase and Art on the Ave should team up with the Urban Arts Fest and Glassroots and throw a 6th Ave block party that is topped off by a Rufus Wainwright concert on the roof of Shakabra. Now that would be worth standing with the zombies all day!

Seriously though, Neco Case? Steve Miller Band? Sepultura? Something?